Trump’s belligerent rhetoric on North Korea wins over Julie Bishop

Julie Bishop says Donald Trump’s confrontational rhetoric on North Korea has brought China to the negotiating table.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says US President Donald Trump’s confrontational rhetoric on North Korea has encouraged China to impose tougher sanctions against the regime, while Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” had not worked.

As the US warned that North Korea had shown “no indication” it was interested in or ready for denuclearisation talks, Ms Bishop threw her support behind the Trump administration’s approach and said it had been effective in “changing” the debate.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is using “back channels” in an attempt to engage North Korea and bring it to the negotiating table following an escalation in the war of words between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un.

“The Chinese recalculated their risk when President Trump upped the ante in terms of the rhetoric and what he said the US would do should they be threatened by North Korea. Instead of it just being, as China has said in the past, a Washington-Pyongyang issue, China now sees it must play a role,” Ms Bishop told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“Trump certainly changed the rhetoric because prior to that, president Obama had a policy of strategic patience. Clearly that didn’t work because during that period North Korea tested more missiles (and) developed its nuclear weapons program to a point where we fear North Korea has the capability to attach a miniaturised nuclear weapon to an intercontinental ballistic missile that may have the capacity to reach the US. So it’s a changed debate.”

North Korea’s foreign minister has accused Mr Trump, who referred to the North Korean dictator as “rocket man”, of declaring war on the regime.

Ms Bishop conceded the UN Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea could take months and in some cases years before they were effective, but applauded China for “playing a pretty active role”.

“We’ll know (sanctions are) working when North Korea is deterred from carrying out any more nuclear tests,” she said.

Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles said it was important to set up a direct line of communication with Pyongyang and pursue “every peaceful means possible” to try to “shape North Korea’s behaviour”. “I’m deeply concerned and that’s because even if there is a small chance of military conflict, the consequences of it would be so grave … it would impact the region, ourselves and the world for a long time to come,” he told Sky News’s Sunday Agenda.